OAXAL

OAXAL: Open Architecture for XML Authoring and Localization is an Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) standards-based initiative to encourage the development of an open Standards approach to XML Authoring and Localization. OAXAL is an official OASIS Reference Architecture Technical Committee.^[1]

On 11 December 2009, the OASIS OAXAL TC approved the OAXAL v1.0 Reference Model as an official OASIS Committee Specification.^[2]

The Open Architecture for XML Authoring and Localization (OAXAL) represents a comprehensive, efficient, and cost-effective model regarding the authoring and translation aspects of XML publishing. OAXAL encompasses the following key Open Standards:^[3]

• XML - Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, flexible text format originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing. XML also plays an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere.
• Unicode (Unicode) - A character encoding scheme that encompasses all character sets.
• W3C ITS (W3C ITS) - An XML vocabulary that defines translatability rules for a given XML document type.
• SRX (SRX) - Segmentation Rules eXchange, a LISA OSCAR standard defining text-subdivision rules for each language. Please also see the Wikipedia article for SRX.
• xml:tm (xml:tm) - XML-based text memory, a LISA OSCAR standard for author memory (a history of segments and revisions) and translation memory (a history of translated segments).
• GMX (GMX) - Global Information Management Metrics Exchange, a LISA OSCAR standard for word and character count and metrics (for volume, complexity, and quality) exchange.
• TMX (TMX) - Translation Memory eXchange, a LISA OSCAR standard for exchanging translation memories.
• Unicode TR29 (Unicode TR29) - The primary Unicode standard defining word and sentence boundaries.
• Open Standard XML Vocabularies, including DITA (DITA), Docbook (Docbook), XHTML (XHTML), SVG (SVG), ODF (ODF), and others that may emerge as standards.
• XLIFF (XLIFF) - XML Localization Interchange File Format, an OASIS standard for exchanging Localization data.